St. Peter's Singers
St Peter’s Singers
In just over thirty five years, St Peter’s Singers has become one of England’s most acclaimed chamber choirs.
Rehearsals are held at Leeds Parish Church every Sunday evening during the Season, and the members of the Singers provide utterly invaluable assistance in the regular presentation of worship at the Church working closely with and alongside the famous Choir of Boys and Men re-founded by Vicar Hook in 1841 and the members of the Parish Church Girls’ Choir (formed in 1997 by Jonathan Lilley, now at Ely Cathedral, and directed with great effectuality and devotion since 2003 by David Houlder MA [Cantab], FRCO).
As a group, the beginnings of St Peter’s Singers may be traced back to foundation by Senior Leeds Parish Church Layclerk Harry Fearnley (1939-2000) in the early months of 2007. By mid-summer that year St Peter’s Singers was up and running and giving concerts.
Earliest members included Mr Fearnley himself, a number of colleagues and friends from among the adults of the Parish Church Choir and the West Riding Singers. Additionally, a significant nucleus of younger singers was provided by sixth-formers from Leeds Girls’ High School and by undergraduates of the University of Leeds and Leeds College of Music. Leading Yorkshire singing teacher Sybil Chambers (1938-1998) brought many of her own pupils and students into the Singers over the years and herself sustained the role of Principal Soprano with great distinction for a decade or more. Similarly, other leading professional and semi-professional singers of the calibre of mezzo Kathryn Woodruff have sustained very long periods of membership and principal baritone Quentin Brown has been committed in that role for over a quarter of a century.
Other soloists include Claire Strafford, soprano and Paul Dutton, tenor – both valued regular guests over very many years.
The present solo line-up from within the choir’s membership includes, additional to Quentin Brown: sopranos Kristina James and Sarah Potter, mezzo Lucy Appleyard, tenor Toby Ward [recently awarded Choral Scholarships to Gloucester Cathedral and King’s College, Cambridge] and bass Philip Wilcox.
Kristina, Lucy and Philip are former alumini – and graduates – of Leeds College of Music. Sarah Potter was educated at Leeds University and, following earlier post-graduate work, is currently studying for a PhD there. Additional to their concert work, Kristina, Lucy and Philip hold teaching/tutorial posts in South and West Yorkshire.
Recent St Peter’s Singers events have included Bach’s Mass in B minor at Halifax Minster on Saturday 3rd March and Maunder’s Olivet to Calvary on Sunday evening 18th March.
A complete performance of Handel’s Messiah on the evening of Good Friday at 7.00 pm will utilize some of Handel’s earliest versions of well-known component music and the performance bids fair to being faithful to the claim that this will, indeed, be Messiah as Handel first heard it!
Other upcoming events featuring this versatile Choir include Choral Evensong, Benediction and a Sermon in Music at St Aidan’s Church, Roundhay Road, Leeds on Sunday 22 April at 4.00 pm and concerts on Saturday evenings in Dewsbury Minster [26 May] and St Cuthbert’s, Pateley Bridge [16 June].
The visit to Fulneck Moravian Church this year on 27 August [Bank Holiday Monday] comprises performances at 3.00 pm of Mozart [Splendente Te, Deus & Ave verum] and Haydn [Nelson Mass and Insanae et vanae curae].
Guest conductors have included leading composers Dr Donald Hunt OBE and two Organists Emeritus of York Minster – Mr Philip Moore and Dr Francis Jackson CBE besides the late John Coates, Carleton Etherington (now at Tewkesbury Abbey), Timothy Gray and Jonathan Lilley.
Our esteemed accompanist and organist, Mr David Houlder, conducted a highly successful concert entitled Music of Remembrance at Leeds Parish Church on Sunday 6th November 2011, with Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem as the main work.
Recent “away” concerts by the Singers have included, in 2008, a gala evening in the Quire at York Minster in celebration of the 60th birthday long-serving SPS conductor Dr Simon Lindley, special concerts at Derby and Ely Cathedrals, Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral and Guildford Cathedral as well as recital tours of Romania in 2007, Mallorca in 2009 and Brittany in 2011. Bach’s Mass in B minor was sung at Fulneck Church in August 2011 and Music of the Angels – including Charpentier’s Midnight Mass and Dixit Dominus of Handel – at The Venue, Quarry Hill last December.
In February 2012, at the very outset of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of Her Majesty The Queen, the Singers gave a special concert of English music to a packed Leeds Town Hall on Monday 13th February entitled “Begin the Jubilee” – a programme that included notable revivals of works by Sir George Dyson [Hierusalem] and George Oldroyd’s Spiritual Rhapsody. The concert was accompanied by David Houlder and held in the presence of Her Majesty’s Vice-Lord Lieutenant for West Yorkshire, Mr John Brennan OBE.
Contacts
Chairman
Concerts Secretary
Choir Secretary – to whom all membership matters, including auditions, should be addressed
Conductor
